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One thing that nobody warns you about when you get a job in the gaming industry is just how many meetings there are. There’re daily standups, gate reviews, sprint meetings, post-mortems, sign-offs, bridge meetings, war rooms, and the list goes on and on. But one of the most important meetings is called Triage. It generally occurs on a daily or weekly cadence, depending on what part of the dev cycle you are in. This is where Production, Design, Engineering, and QA get together and discuss the latest bugs. We go over each bug written since the last Triage and decide as a group how important the bug is, who is going to fix it, and when they need to fix it by. There are three main ways that this is measured. Severity: How bad the bug is, in the eyes of the user. Priority: How soon a bug should be fixed. Repro Rate: How hard, or easy, is it to run into the bug? How likely are players to see it? This is usually measured in attempts. For example, a crash bug could happen 100% of the time, or it could only happen under very specific conditions. And one thing that is easy to forget when you’re lost in a sea of bugs, is the scale of the audience. Sure, only 10% of the testers may experience a specific issue. But 8% of the modern AAA audience is hundreds of thousands of players. You would think, with that in mind, anything that affects at least 5% of players would be treated as a serious concern. But what if I told you that while only 0.5% of women are color-blind, 8% of men are? And how many modern games have color-blind filters? The answer is not nearly enough. Accessibility features are about giving players the tools they need to enjoy the game in whichever way works best for them. If you can add color-blind filters (https://colorblindgames.com/2021/03/29/colorblind-gaming-101-the-basics/) that’s roughly 5% more potential sales. According to the Entertainment Software Association, 85% of Americans under 18 play video games at least once a week. That comes out to 205 million players in the US alone. Five percent of which, comes to 8,000,000 people. Multiple that by $60 and we’re talking serious money. So why, in a world where the dollar drives everything, are accessibility features not standard? Why are so many developers leaving so many potential players behind? It would be easy for me to blame big bad CEO’s or shareholders for the problem. But the reality is, it’s not malicious. Like most issues in life, it’s more ignorance than anything else. People just aren’t as informed on the subject as they could be. But that is starting to change. The industry is starting to come around and they are making serious investments in multiple ways. (alt text: Ishihara test was invented to measure color blindness. The image above uses different shades to create the image of Toadstool from Super Mario Bros) source: Obsidian has been leading the way for longer than most. Well before it was “cool” to make accessible games, titles like Pillars of Eternity (2013) were giving players multiple color-blind filters, detailed difficulty options, and a large suite of audio/video settings to let players decide what “good” looks like. Back in 2020 Grounded introduced the Arachnophobia filter. A setting that is now becoming default in many horror/survivor games. Hogwarts Legacy added it, but only after NorskPL released a community mod for the setting. My favorite is actually from the most recent version, Grounded 2. Can you detect the feature? It’s one of the first things you see when you start the game. (alt text: Screenshot of Grounded 2 main menu showing custom face button graphics used to inform the player where on the face the button is located.) Many of you probably pointed to the Accessibility shortcut. And that is a great example of mindful design. How do you expect people to turn on the accessibility features if they need the accessibility features enabled to get to the accessibility features? But that’s not my favorite. My new favorite is the A and Y buttons. Notice what’s different? I bet you Xbox Certification noticed that these are not authorized representations of the face buttons on an Xbox controller. But I love that they saw through the rule to find the intent. Instead of confusing players, these actually provide more information. It’s a tiny change that can have a big impact. Heck, I’m not even color-blind and these helped me after I spent the previous few weeks playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, where the A and B buttons are swapped. And that’s the key to accessibility features. Not telling players how to play, but providing the options for them to play how they want to play. And they are not alone. The industry as a whole has finally seen the benefits of expanding their games and tearing down walls. For example: the Entertainment Software Association (a trade association representing the major video game developers and publishers across the industry) recently rolled out their Accessible Games Initiative. They are leading by example and starting with updating their storefronts to include Accessibility Tags. Much like you can browse by genre or feature, now you can filter games by which ones support the accessibility features you care the most about. (alt text: A black background with brightly colored stickers in the shapes of Xbox icons and accessibility products like prosthetic legs, wheelchairs, and seeing eye dogs.) And they are not alone. A whole market is forming around consulting, reviewing, and teaching about accessibility. People are getting together and demanding “Never about us, without us.” From Accessibility Labs, a startup in Tempe, AZ of former QA professionals passionate about Accessibility testing. To Microsoft’s Xbox Accessibility Guidelines, requirements that titles they publish must meet. But Tommy, I’m a developer and I want to do better. How can I make sure everyone is able to enjoy my hard work? Well, I’m glad you asked, imaginary developer person. Because while I’m passionate about the subject, I also acknowledge I’m just as ignorant as most. But together, we can work towards fighting that ignorance, in our own minds, and in others. Even the smallest changes, like the button prompts above, can have a huge impact. Bring on Accessibility experts during your design phase, don’t wait until you’re about to launch. Don’t be like so many others before you that designed fully fleshed out UI’s that rely on a cursor to navigate. Only to find out down the road this is not very accessible for people with fine motor issues. Making these changes during the design phase will save you thousands, if not millions, of dollars down the line. Embrace your lack of knowledge and seek out the experts. There are resources available to developers of all shapes and sizes. Are you a small developer that wants to do better, but just doesn’t know where to start? Support other independent gamers like Accessibility Labs. Have a good idea of what you want to do, but want to make sure you aren’t forgetting anything? Check out Microsoft’s Xbox Accessibility Guidelines. Want to support the effort in other ways? Reach out to AbleGamers, who have been fighting this fight for over 20 years. Enjoy this article and want to know more? Check out Derek Gruber on Seattle Indie’s Accessibility Awareness Month episode. The last thing I want to do is trivialize game and UX design. Accessibility is just one of countless aspects that must be considered when designing a game and it’s UI. What’s most important is that you are making the effort. Instead of asking why you should add an option, ask why you shouldn’t. When in doubt, trust the player to decide what is best for themselves. Not every feature is going to be a home run. But as long as we, as a community, are working towards improving, the rising tide will raise all ships. Sources & Resources Game Developer - Nintendo, Microsoft, EA and others unite to make accessibility messaging a priority Washington Post - Accessibility option in survival game ‘Grounded’ turns my arachnophobia into a thrill Colorblind Games - Colorblind Gaming 101: The Basics Mashable - Video games taught me I was colorblind but it's not always a friendly lesson Nexus Mods - Arachnophobia mode Seattle Indies - Accessibility Awareness Month Interview Series: Steve Saylor and Derek Gruber Able Gamers - Combating Social Isolation Through Play Accessibility Labs Microsoft - Xbox Accessibility Guidelines Entertainment Software Association (ESA) - Entertainment Software Association Introduces the Accessible Games Initiative to Provide Players with Information About Accessibility Features in Video Games

What a great blog! As a gamer with a disability (I have a serious hearing impairment), I am so very glad people in the industry (and within Obsidian) are taking accessibility seriously. I require captioning for everything voice-related. But even with captioning pretty common these days, some games leave out crucial bits of the game from their captioning system, such as backgound chatter/banter. It's so very frustrating to hear the sound of someone saying something, but then not be able to know what they said. Keep up the good work! And thanks!!

For me, I don't want to give them something for nothing. What will I gain by connecting my Windows to an account. They need to actually offer something worthwhile for doing that.

From the article, Let us work towards affordable renewable energy and the fossil-fuel dictatorships having no power over us, wherever they may be located.

I went to a 30th anniversary showing of ghost in the shell. It still holds up

Looks like Jimmy Kimmel is coming back Wednesday, which is was either the plan all along, or Disney desperately trying to hit the undo button after getting lambasted by everyone that isn't on Team Maga. My guess is the latter.

I started over "those who rule" due to FOMO. Turns out one of the people i thought was receuitable was not. I did save him and let him live though, so maybe there will be a call back to it at some point. I am stuck on a level I struggled hard with the first time. If I just wanted to beat the level it would be no problem. It is the side objectives. Main mission is "survive for 12 turns" easy. Side missions: "Save the villagers" this one gets me occasionally but for the most part it's easy to save them unless you get some bad RNG The hard part comes with there being two boss type characters on opposite sides of the map. These boss characters are holding useful items. You don't have to kill them but FOMO. You have to defend a church from waves of enemies coming from two directions. All while pushing forward towards the item holding boss characters. These boss characters are standing behind where the waves of enemies spawn in. Even all this would be doable. But 12 turns makes it very difficult. You essentially have to get close enough by turn 11 to have the boss come out of his spot and attack you. While hoping that does not kill any of your characters. I have gotten close so many times but then an archer comes out and kills one of my characters and I have to restart. The worst part is that you can't skip the enemies turn, so after failing my self imposed mission, I have to watch the rest of their dang turn before restarting. Edit: also the AI is not stupid so they will attack the person closest to death

Playing "those who rule" turn based tactics JRPG(style). I am enjoying it, but it's perma death for your units. So it takes me like 10 tries every level because I can't handle losing a character forever. MAYBE later when I stop liking a character, or have too many, I will allow some to die. The story is pretty basic so far, but im only on the third non training fight. You control some ranger group troops. Everyone is betraying everyone. You're very clearly fighting for the bad guys. I hope it turns out everyone is evil, just like real life. There is no world map or anything, just dialogue sections followed by a fight. There are lots of conversations between the different characters, which is kinda interesting because characters can die so you can definitely miss out on side objectives and stuff. My only real problem with it is that I'm constantly restarting fights due to perma death. Which is fine, but they make you go through the dialogue over and over which gets annoying after the 10th try. There are story choices you can make, but it kinda feels like those choices don't really matter. Example. Very early on you can choose to surrender or to fight. If you choose to fight it just cuts to black and you move on to the next section... I can't imagine choosing to surrender would give you anything different, though I have not tried. I dislike pointless dialogue choices. The only game I use a walkthrough guide with are the persona games. Mostly because there is a "correct answer" that has positive effects, and bad answers are just bad. Often there is no discernable reason for that answer to be correct. Or maybe it's just too cryptic for me to tell.

Portland, those Hegseth/Trump speeches, the US gov. shutdown, Trump being a mentally doddering bully wanna-be despot (seriously, his Twitter posts are childish bully rants). Hey America, are we great again, yet?

I finished the main plot in Hogwarts Legacy. Overall I think it is a good game. A bit too Elder Scrolls like perhaps and a bit too collection focused. I think every bit of content overstays its welcome just a tad. The good thing is, for the bonuses you don't need to do everything. Just over half the Merlin Trials unlock max inventory. You can ignore the other forty something trials. The game doesn't force you to do every repetitive thing. The writing works. The plot works. The endless hordes of enemies do not work for a game that is focused on such a small area. The hundreds of poachers you kill mean you basically depopulated the wider area around Hogwarts and Hogsmead. Some comments the characters make are very on point. When your character wonders why nobody has looted the chests in the dungeon, even though you known it has been explored before. When you wonder why your professor has very specific ingredients for a potion on hand. Whoever wrote the story has felt those plot quibbles themselves and isn't above some self irony when they find themselves in that situation. It's the exact type of little thing that wins me over. The combat is fun. It is far more involved than a lot of action rpgs. The different spell combos and the way different spells may uniquely interact with different enemies are great. I still need to figure out how to hit a troll with their club. I don't like all the voice actors. I understand criticism that it is less a game about going to wizarding school and more a run around kill stuff game. I don't know how a school simulator would have been fun though.

Parked my last Stellaris game after I basically won (Galactic Emperor, smacked the Contingency, and enough fleet power to walk over anyone who even looked at me funny). Almost thought I managed to make the Unbidden spawn, but seems Ultima Vergilis just is being ominous when you already beat the crisis, shame. Started a new game and since I usually turtle I figured I'd force myself into early combat by going at is as a Driven Exterminator Gestalt Consciousness. Only to spawn between two Fallen Empires and another Driven Exterminator. Great. Also ended up running into some major Trade deficit issues because I'm not familiar with how to play machines, so ended up mostly turtling anyway while I figured out/fixed my economy. At that point one of the Fallen Empires decides to awaken, and since I can't handle them in a fair fight I build up fortress systems and fleets like mad and shelve any plans for wanton galactic murder sprees. Aaaand then Cetana decides to spawn, obliterating the FE(s), taking some of my (fortified) systems with her and then just basically ruining the rest of the game (as far as I'm concerned). All the research options for the crisis end up outside my borders, so unless I want to fight a whole load of wars to get to them I have no access to them. So I have content myself with nabbing her transports, trying to get somewhere with the situation that way. Unfortunately she somehow goes hostile before she declares war somehow, despite me having "good" rep (bug?) and just "removes" some of my biggest fleets (not even combat, just dialogue and *poof* fleet gone...). Once she finally does declare war I try beelining her with everything I have left but just get smacked like a fly. She, herself, has 1.5m fleet power, and the rest of the crap in the system she hides in counts for another million or so, even before losing a bunch of ships to bs I managed only like half that. AI doesn't even try to deal with her, like at all, unlike every other crisis where at least they can act as a distraction. Might as well be alone in the galaxy for this one, and can't rely on Fallen Empires to do, well ... anything as she just outright murders them with a 100% guarantee when she spawns. This is also where I learned you can't disable a specific crisis, you can pick a specific one, but you can't say "give me any random one, except for that one", which is annoying as from what I've seen I don't think I want her in most of my games (but I don't necessarily want to disable the whole DLC) as she seems ridiculously over-tuned compared to every other crisis (and I just generally dislike things being on timers like this).

And nobody is surprised.

An apology to the Kirk family, lol. His "bereft" wife was on air after the assassination, scoring cult brownie points in an inflammatory speech trying to turn her late husband into a martyr, exactly the sort of thing a mourning widow would do directly after losing her husband and father of her children. Especially a mourning widow from a traditional family the way Charlie Kirk argued for. 99% of right-wing whining is projection. Or as we say here: "So wie der Schelm ist, so denkt er auch von anderen." - meaning, very loosely, it takes one to know one. Although Kash Patel still takes the take. I'll see you in Valhalla bro has to be the dumbest line of 2025 (coming from the director of the FBI), and it's a year where Trump said a lot and renamed the Gulf of Mexico and the Department of Defense.

My shake at venison au poivre vert with (store-bought) spaetzle and creamed spinach: Half-serious question: Does the Rémy Martin for the sauce count against my Sober October?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1154960/Ardenfall/ I've played for 40 minutes or so (got through the tutorial cave and walked around the first town). Looks like Morrowind with (much) better combat.

I didn't know there is a new Heroes of Might and Magic in works, and there is even an early demo to try out. It looks like it's being done on budget, but it is actually quite snappy, and seems like could be a nice entry to the series. As the series have been in limbo for a while, it is nice to see a return to form, though it might be a bit too conservative. HoM&M3 die hards might not be willing to move on at this point, and I am not sure how much new blood with a budget title like this one attract.

The Last of Us Part 1 Maybe my third or fourth playthrough, but first time on PC. Never actually finished Part 2 and decided it's time to do it. It's been long enough that I really don't remember some of this.

I backed it as well, because it's something I'd been hoping to see (a Starfinder game), so... I figured I should. It's two years away though, so we're in for a bit of a wait. It looks like they're already up to $400,000, so they may end up with more than they bargained for. Starfinder: Afterlight could become one of my favourite CRPGs—even if the studio's co-founders are 'more scared about huge success than a bit of failure' when it comes to their big Kickstarter debut (PC Gamer)

Footage from the Portlandian front God bless the warfighters deployed there.

Manor Lords - finally a giant beta test version dropped. I guess it isn't abandoned after all (ha). Didn't sign up for access, I'd rather wait for full public version with beta-resultt patches added, but from reading up, sounds like a lot of changes (plus some new maps). Old saves will not be compatible with it. No Man's Sky - still making silly ships, still flying around exploring planets, still occasionally see stuff I've never seen before - and still have restart-itis re: Abandoned Mode new starts. I never went much past the intro of Little Kitty, Big City, since the one time I tried was when I had the PSU reboot issues, and I just never went back to it. They keep patching/adding to the game, including cute outfits (heh). Hoping to motivate to look at it again this weekend. I could use some "cute."

Great blog @Fishtick Really interesting and not something I have often considered

New community blog is live by @Fishtick The Unintentional Gatekeeping of Video Games

You have to do research on any mod collection that interests you so you avoid that type of unexpected change I use YT because if a review of any mod collection is not on YT then its not very popular and then not worth the risk of installing it Almost all these mod collections have readme files and Discord links which I use but I still consider the YT reviews more credible and informative

The next Community blog will land tomorrow. Until then, (re)visit some of the contributions that have been submitted thus far ...

I installed one of those mod compilation things on nexus and it instantly made me not want to play because they made every woman with an Itty bitty waist and a round thing in your face. I got sprung and decided it was too weird for me. Never played passed the character creation screen.

Hi! To speed up so you're able to squeeze more attacks into the duration of Vanishing Strike and to maximize the duration of Vanishing Strike's non-breakable invisibility (besides maxing DEX and INT) while looking appropriate for a dagger-type Assassin: Head: Blackblade's Hood (+10% action speed). Heaven's Cacophony (+2 INT) would be good, too - but imo its looks doesn't fit an Assassin at all. You could hide it though. Another alternative would be the Mask of the Grotto Deep - because Shadow Fang (raw DoT from stealth attack) works like True Love's Kiss from Lover's Embrace. Fair Favor can be used to maximize crit conversion for Gambit (I would focus on the duration of Vanishing Strike though). Armor: Cabalist's Gambeson (Arcane Extension, +10% beneficial effects duration), Devil of Caroc Breastplate (bonus Guile influences the crit conversion of Gambit) Neck: Strand of Favor (+10% beneficial effects duration, +1 INT) --> those two "+10% duration" effects work multiplicatively with each other, base duration and INT bonus! Back: Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak (bonus dmg, acc and stun from Vanishing Strike's invisibility and stealth, great for Gambit, too) Gloves: Aegor's Swift Touch (+5% action speed and +1 DEX), Gloves of the Dungeon Warden (bonus accuracy, Lockdown 1/rest can be nice against an enemy you put True Love's Kiss + Gouging Strike on from stealth), Firethrower's Gloves (+2 DEX), Hylea's Talons* Waist: Sash of Judgement (just some bonus dmg) Rings: Drunkard's Regret (only needed while resting with alcohol for Pukestabber to prevent hangovers, you can unequip after resting), Kuaru's Prize (+1 INT, +1 PER), Ring of Prosperity's Fortune (crit conversion for Gambit), Ring of Clenched Muscle* Boots: Rakhan Field Boots (teleport to+full attack + prone target 1/encounter, nice while invisible to spare time with running), Bounding Boots (exploitable as free jumping tool while stealthed/invisible: if you cancel the action mod air you will still land at the target spot but make no sound and roll no attack, great for "sneaking", stealth attacks, and pickpocket), Boots of Speed (it does matter how quickly you can reach subsequent enemies while you are invisible, stack with Fast Runner). Pet: Ooblit (+3 seconds on beneficial effects - it's just a flat 3sec addition to your overall duration, still good), Abraham (mitigate the recovery penalty from Gambeson), Epsilon (same), Cutthroat Cosmo (same), Trixie (+25% stride, see Boots of Speed, crit conversion), Milx (+1 INT, crit conversion for abilities), Levin (+1 INT, +10% stride), give Nalvi, Sheba , Trixie or Pes to Edér (if you have the Berath's Blessing unlocked for Edér to be able to have pets). --- *) the Frenzy from Lover's Embrace stacks with everything and it also procs off of all attack rolls, not only those that come from the dagger - for example attacks from Pukestabber but also spells you might cast (from an item or scroll or so). Because of that it can be beneficial to add additional hit rolls to your melee attacks. That can be done with Hylea's Talons (the DoT it provides will roll a separate attack which can trigger the Frenzy) and the Ring of Clenched Muscle (the affliction it can cause also rolls a separate attack which can trigger the Frenzy). Both of those will also proc Avenging Storm (from Heaven's Cacophony) which will in turn proc Frenzy.

I decided to play Cyb2077 next and Im looking forward to it Im a big fan of CDPR and the Witcher games and W3 is my third favorite RPG of all time As usual I will be modding the game and I have already installed this mod collection called Welcome to Night City which is very popular https://www.nexusmods.com/games/cyberpunk2077/collections/iszwwe I used Wabbajack and all the mods downloaded and installed in MO2 in 40 minutes. Easiest install of mods I have ever had, 248 mods in the collection I am looking for any additional mod suggestions, adult mods included. This game screams for adult mods

I'm considering changing my forum nickname to CrabbyCrimson. It might be more appropriate these days.

Judging by the Pathfinder games, it won't be.

The bots are convincing me the Luddites were right.

Maybe it will force developers away from spending all their attention on eye candy and action. One can hope.

Yeah, we were all busy rolling in money and honeys.

*reads about some Xbox price hike, both physical goods and now GamePass, stuff* Even considering tariff's re: hardware, I wonder if Xbox/MS has decided if you can't afford them, you won't make them any money anyway. I don't think it's only the price of the Gamepass hike alone - companies really need to realize there is such a thing as subscription/constant fees exhaustion. I mean, from fridges/dishwashers to cars to game/entertainment services. Enough already. Just gimmie a product, not a "service", already.

It's OUT. And it's not 100% what you think it is (another typical Boomer Shooter / Blood clone). What sold chapter 1 to me back then was the end of the demo, where suddenly the music stopped, you were crawling through a tight space with but your lighter showing the way. And the thing opened up into a genuine survival horror-ish setpiece... Apparently chapter 2 goes even more into that direction.

...Wait a second, they took the ancient fused uniques from Diablo 2 and made it into an actual mechanic now? Supposedly, Mephisto had a bugged drop table in the initial release of Lord of Destruction that limited how many uniques could drop at the same time, but it was coded badly and it made it so that in the extremely unlikely event of too many uniques dropping, you'd get the base item of one but the properties of another, hence the monstrosities above. Wizardspike Gauntlets in particular were duped to all hell and back, but there were a few others. I say "supposedly" because there's no video of this ever actually happening despite the fact that someone could go (dis)prove it if they really wanted to, those old versions of the games still exist and it's not at all difficult to change the drop mechanics to force only uniques to drop - it could just as well be that they were hacked items. Though unlike all the hacked items that were mass-removed from everyone's characters like twenty years ago never to return, fused uniques still exist on the official D2 servers, so maybe there's something to it after all.

"The investment is done with a 20B loan which they intent to recoup with cutting costs by using AI to replace visual and voice artists." Amazing. Never buy anything EA ever again.

I like games with newspapers. Though I believe they could have done it a bit better. Cute little detail Crafting The Pulp Fiction moment When the quest giver tells you to find out yourself how to do the quest.

I have started New Arc Line. There are currently three races to choose from: Human, Elf, and Dwarf. Humans and Dwarves can choose between Diesel Tech and Voodoo Shaman as classes. Dwarves choose between Steam Tech and Hellfire Mage. I am trying out a human Dieselpunk Gunslinger. The writing... has some problems. On the one hand, a lot of writers, they try too much. Lots of words, lots of fancy words, all to prove "Look ma, I have a vocabulary." I do not like that. Other people do. The writers seem to not have English as their mother tongue. The odd mistake here and there. The attempt to write "British" characters, with slang and all, without understanding the slang - thinking they do because they watched Austin Powers. We'll see though how the story goes. Mr Simon made a great first impression as NPCs go. Unlike Mick... who is a bit boring. Why is it so often in RPGs, that the first character to join your party is boring? I hope the story works out as interesting. Somehow other than Arcanum, there hasn't been a good tech vs magic RPG - Silverfall fell a bit short and was also a long long time ago. The game is a bit unstable. Trying to load a previous save can crash the game for me That's Early Access I guess.

So, Diablo IV season is done. This is the shortest time it took for me to clear one, and I generally tend to take my time rather than plow through the content in an efficient fashion. Not that I mind that much.

When you get one of those emails telling you you received money and all you need to do is check the attached file, then you hover over the sender - out of curiosity - and the address is @ troy The file comes from Troy? So it is by definition a Trojan file? In a way I don't even begrudge them any money they swindle out of people.

Sorry for the late reply, unfortunately this isn't an area Deadfire that is really supported with gamedata modding and there hasn't been much exploration from what I have seen into how to really accomplish it using other methods. As far as I know the files for triggering random encounters are stored in level files relevant to the location they take place. Not sure of how randomisation works exactly, but it seems to select from a random pool of specified encounters. There also isn't really a way to add to these pools of encounters directly in the gamedata from what I can see. The only way I'm aware that could work outside of this is triggering the random encounter with modscripts hook. with the LaunchRandomEncounter script and setting conditional expressions that will trigger it at the right time. There aren't any conditional for checking for the player travel in cities though, or coordinates on the world map though. So it's pretty imprecise sadly.

More and more, I think corporations are learning the hard way that doing anything to draw political attention to yourself in this polarized climate is pretty much always the wrong thing to do - you do something to score points and you get the other side angry at you, then you walk it back and now both sides are angry at you. You could've just done nothing and sat quietly in your corner, blissfully happy that nobody was thinking of you being political in any meaningful way.

If you continue to read BruceVC posts of your own free volition, you are mad indeed. Well, maybe I should check to see what he said myself... Oh wait, I can't! And I think to myself...what a wonderful world. Well, except for all the other stupid, disingenuous ****s out there, but it is what it is.

Curtis Yarvin has been blogging about his dreams for almost twenty years, blogs called Unqualified Reservations and Gray Mirror, you can look them up if you want, and he calls it Dark Enlightenment (a name that teenagers could easily pick for their goth or black metal band). Companies existing as their own little kingdoms with their own laws, and them as kings. Cities run as companies, competing for citizens. The final Cyberpunk form of Guard Dog's beloved libertarianism. He blogged about how to turn the US into an autocracy and has inspired the neo-reactioary movement. He's a nutjob who has gone from defining castes of people in the US, arguing that South American immigrants are part of a caste where men are criminals and women on welfare, to giving them names from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (elves are the liberal ruling elite, hobbits are the middle class and dwarves the workers) and wants to replace the elves with dark elves (i.e. him and his ilk). Friends with J. D. Vance (who has publicly quoted the "works" of Yarvin and referenced Yarvin's idea of the Cathedral in speeches), even though he's been trying to distance himself from him, and backed by Peter Thiel. The same Peter Thiel who runs companies like Mithril and Palantir, because referencing Tolkien's body of work is fun. A nutjob who was invited to the inaugural gala of Mango Mussolini because by now he's an influencial figure among the alt-right / neo-reactionaries. You know, someone who wants to turn the United States into a monarchy, with ties to the vice president, in an administration where the president has posted and talked about himself as being the king on more than one occasion. Who said that voting for him would be the last time people need to vote. With people like Bruce still believing he's joking. The tech bros are, as Gromnir put it, vying for control. Absolute control. I mean, what can you do when you're so rich that you and your familiy will never want for anything for any forseeable future? Well, why not become king?

am agreeing the US is embracing fascism with disappointing vigor and speed, but am simply noting that all too often people use "fascist" and "authoritarian" interchangeable... save that fascist feels worse, so is more pejorative? most o' us rolled our eyes when vol identified every group or action he disagreed with as nazi. all too often, people do something similar with the fascit label. dunno. regardless, am agreeing that the US is pretty deep into fascism at the moment. the following is kinda silly, but also illustrative valhalla? the commander in chief dodged the draft for chrissakes, but somehow we got this weird quasi-comic warrior culture being perpetuated by pete hegseth and... kash patel, the trump administration's living embodiment o' peter pettigrew. serious? add contempt/fear o' science, demonization o' trans people and minority groups, a s'posed "invasion" at the southern border, exploitation of outrage and grievance, as well as the deep state nonsense. etc. but again, is not difficult to make a fascist argument for almost any government organization or action... if you don't like 'em. am simply pointing out that identifying generic authoritarian behaviors and practices by a government doesn't genuine push the needle toward a result of fascism in any meaningful way. as for tech company's following the lure o' profit, we agree... mostly. during the biden years the tech companies were doing extreme well. profits were historic good. the US economy were the "envy of the world" and all that. sure, ordinary americans had struggles with inflation and cost of living concerns, but the tech bros were unaffected by such minutiae. one reason why bernie sanders and elizabeth warren were always outraged during the biden term is 'cause never had so few made so much money in such a short a period o' time, and those tech bro billionaires were paying proportional less in taxes than rich people had been required to pay for +80 years. converse, trump is an ignorant buffoon who doesn't care what happens to the economy as long as he personal gets rich. the tech guys knew before the election that tariffs were problematic and trump's current assault on the fed is not helping with investor confidence. mass deportations is necessarily gonna result in further inflation as well as a shrinking of the consumer and tax-paying base as well as creating severe impacts on specific industries such as agriculture and construction. the tech guys know that if the economy tanks, they will also suffer, but they nevertheless supported (and continue to support) erratic and ignorant as 'posed to the status quo, a status quo which were making them all fabulously rich. so, if profits were your most pressing concern, which bet made more sense, harris or trump? am gonna suggest that even more than profit, the tech guys is blinded by their need for control. there is a belief amongst the tech bros that if they have control, they will keep making money no matter what, so control and profit is necessarily intertwined, but if if they gotta make a choice 'tween the two, control wins. biden frequently cut the tech oligarchs outta the decision making 'round government regulation of ai and lina khan was kinda their nightmares given flesh. converse, the tech guys can get trump to respond to their phone calls and a shiny bauble and a performative genuflection is, they believe, gonna get them the results they desire. kleptorcacy and oligarchy ain't the same thing, but the tech oligarchs is betting that they are able to convince trump to enrich them too even if the recent conflict 'tween elon musk and donald trump should prove that they don't have legit control. regardless, if profits were genuine your most pressing concern, why would you f with the status quo o' the previous administration? HA! Good Fun! ps our biggest concern regarding the endemic misunderstanding o' fascism is that the only reason most maga folks, not to mention a considerable % o' the remaining general population, reflexive balk at being called fascist is 'cause they don't know what is fascism. w/o mention o' fascism, describe the kinda vague ideology being promoted by tucker carlson, bennie johnson and yeah, charlie kirk using the framework o' umberto eco's fourteen features. describe in glowing terms how tucker, unlike the mainstream media, recognizes the threat of trans people and immigrants, or how bennie johnson embraces a return o' masculinity. without mention o' fascism, use the fourteen features to describe the increasingly typical right-wing pundit and then see how many americans see such as problematic v. positive. when the el paso walmart shooting happened, we read the shooter's manifesto. in 2009, the manifesto woulda' sounded like the ranting o' a lunatic. in 2019, the manifesto's main points were familiar to anybody who followed tucker carlson. @Pidescois no doubt certain that fascism is unhealthy for a society, and history supports that conclusion, but am increasing of the opinion that fascism is only seen as pejorative by most maga types because they don't know what fascism is. pps am also gonna observe how most o' the media companies, law firms and universities who has capitulated were similar going mask off in the name of profits. as noted, the law firms who rolled over for tump were the firms who has big merger and acquisition portfolios. the current kerfuffle regarding jimmy kimmel happened 'cause the head o' the fcc intimated that he would kill a prospective merger deal 'tween sinclair and nexstar. earlier when cbs and abc caved to trump whims, it were also likely due to the fact they got big deals in the works which require fed approval to happen. universities caved as soon as trump went after their grants. etc. this trump administration has had difficulty avoiding tripping over their own feet even as the rough beast, its hour come at last, slouches toward bethlehem. even so, you gotta hand it to the project 2025 folks as they appeared to bet that all the big talk from lawyers, universities and others regarding rights and justice was just so much air and that if tested, people with the power to make a difference would choose their third vacation house as 'posed to remaining true to their espoused convictions. trump, is a psycopath, but am s'posing that is the source o' much o' his success. trump can smell weakness?

I got the email today that I am officially verified as run #16! It's hard to believe its been over 6 months since I finished my run. Something fun is Sam said in his email there have been a surprising number of submissions recently. Looking forward to seeing what people have done.